I squealed like the tires of a one-day-a-year-Irishman driving at 2 am on St. Patrick’s Day. I scrambled to my feet, clutching my gun in one hand and my basket in the other. Dozens more of the foot-long roaches crawled over heaps of trash.
Cormac stood not far off, scanning the rubbish. I didn’t see Bryn anywhere.
“Those roaches are huge!”
“No kidding.” He kicked over a pile of marijuana joints. “Hey, some of these still have some tokes left!”
He scooped a handful into his pocket.
“Cormac!” I said.
“What?” he said innocently. “You never know when it might come in handy.”
Come to think of it, the whole woods stank faintly of pot, laced with generic reek. “What the hell.”
“Yup,” Cormac said. “We’re in a hell echelon. Though not one of the worse ones. You know, it’s more of a gateway hell.”
“If there are worse places than this, I’d like to see them.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t.”
It looked as if a maleficent witch had cast a spell of decrepitude over the whole world. I was surprised how similar things were and how different. Granny Rose’s wooden cabin was still there, but it sagged as if had been abandoned for a hundred years. Cobwebs grayed the corners. The roof had rotted and collapsed, covered in trash and wet leaves. I could see the interior of the empty rooms, cluttered with broken, moldering furniture.
All around, the once beautiful forest had been transformed, as if it had been ravaged by a forest fire then turned into a dump yard. The Douglas firs were blackened skeletons, surrounded by tattered skirts of plastic grunge. Trash blew everywhere: empty bags of chips, crumpled spit wads of aluminum foil, newspaper (really? who even reads those anymore?) plastic bottles, glass bottles, beer cans, whole subdivisions of cigarette butts.
“It’s like all the delinquents of all the high schools in the country snuck to this very spot to have a smoke,” I marveled.
“Why do you think the trees are all burned? A lot of pyromaniacs end up in echelons like this. But not a lot of firefighters.”
“Where’s Bryn?”
“I don’t know. She can’t be far, but we don’t dare rush. This may the juvie hall of Hell, but it’s still a dangerous place.”
“Is it… did we really go anywhere? Everything looks the same, but warped.”
“Every echelon is like a mirror earth. A funhouse mirror.”
“But some are less fun than others.”
“I don’t know which one we’re in yet, but I can tell it’s one of the Ghoulie earths. If it were an echelon of Hades, it would be much worse.”
Ghoulie: the opposite of Faerie. “But it’s still part of Hell.”
“Yeah. So watch your back.”
“Can Bryn see all this without a Talisman?”
“She can now. She’s here in her human body, same as we are.”
We heard a scream.
“I’d say we found her,” Cormac remarked.
“Bryn!” I prepared to race to her without thinking.
“Roxy, be careful!”
I skid to a halt. “Dude, of course I’ll be careful. It’s not like I would just race to her without thinking.”
We advanced step by vigilant step through the trashy woods until we saw a gang of vile green skinned creatures playing with Bryn like fifteen cats with a mouse. They stood in a loose circle around her. Their pointy teeth bared in nasty laughter as they shoved her from one to another, mocking her attempts to break out. A couple of them filmed the bullying with their phones.
“Gang-bang rage-fuck of a real-fucking human!” sniggered one of chubby chartreuse churls. “This is going to go viral!”
“Goblins,” snarled Cormac.
“They have phones?”
“They have everything we have. Before they died, and walked through a Door to arrive here, they were human too.”
Except for their vomit-hued dermis, pus-oozing zits, lousy shanks of hair, greasy goatees, Catalburun split-noses, and rank odor, they were really ugly. The goblins dressed more for East LA than for Mordor. They wore soiled t-shirts, filthy jeans, stupid backwards facing baseball caps, gold man-chains dangling bling charms like rhinestone dollar signs, and other tacky shit. They almost all had tats (inspiring messages like “Fuck Your Mother—I Did!”) and a few had shaved heads or dyed, spiked hair. All the latest in pimp-chic.
Cormac waved at me and we both hid behind something I thought was a big boulder, but upon postmortem discovered was the wreck of a station wagon. Skeletons sat sideways inside. Not sure what killed them, as they had their seatbelts on. Granted, garroted around their necks.
“I think I know what echelon we’re in,” I whispered, “Wr…”
“Wreyth,” Cormac said with me.
“You know it.”
“I know goblins.” Not a lot of affection there. “Do you have a gun?”
“Right here.” I showed him the Spirit Gun.
“That won’t work,” he said. “It’s an exorcist gun.”
“So what, it only works in a gym?”
“It only works on ghosts or spirits possessing bodies not their own. It won’t kill a human, unless he’s a werewolf or a vampire. It won’t kill a goblin who is in his own echelon.”
“Do you have a gun?” I asked.
“I hate guns.”
“Seriously? I like guns a lot better than punching. They don’t hurt.”
“I’m pretty sure guns hurt people.”
“I meant they don’t hurt my knuckles.”
Cormac snorted. “Goblins love guns too. Unfortunately.”
He was right. Every single one of the goblins was packing heat. They had some impressive pieces too. Pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, machine guns, grenade launchers, flamethrowers….Sheesh.
“I guess we both better weapon up. Think our friends will mind?”
He gestured to the skeletons. They were not only armed, but the rusty trunk, which Cormac broke open, contained dozens more guns and packs of ammo, and even a nest of grenades. We each grabbed two guns. I packed as many more guns and ammo into the picnic basket as would fit. I wasn’t sure how stable those grenades were, so I almost left them. At the last minute, I plucked two and squirreled them away with the other weapons.
“Cormac?”
“Yes?”
“Can we die here?”
“Yes. And if we die here, we regenerate here—but not as humans. As goblins. We won’t be just dead; we’ll be damned too. So try not to get killed.”
Awesome. I felt a lot better now.
We came up with a plan. Not much of a plan, nothing you’d submit to the Best Plan Of The Year Contest if you wanted to win 3-Days/2-Nights All Expenses Paid in Aruba, but a plan. He crept away through the stinking debris to the north. When he was far enough away from my position, I opened fire.
Not a wild burst. I took time with my shots, sniper style. That got the buggers’ attention. They unleashed a hailstorm of bullets back at me. I discovered that the rusty station wagon wasn’t bullet proof. The awesome kept coming.
Bright side, they were terrible shots. Bullets pinged the plastic bottles and rusting car parts all around me, but nothing grazed me.
Meanwhile, Cormac sneaked in from behind them, and performed some mind-blowing kung fu on the two goblins holding Bryn. Bryn broke free and tossed in a few smooth moves of her own. Against the goblin gang, Cormac and Bryn fought together back to back as if they were one Superweapon attached at the hip. A part of me fist-pumped the air at the sight, but another part of me prickled from little cactus-stabs of jealousy.
Some of the buggers shooting at me turned back toward Cormac and Bryn, undulating outrage. That gave me a perfect shot. I picked three more of them off. Seven down…
…Five hundred to go.
More goblins poured out of holes in the ground from god-knows-what burrows or bunkers.
“Time to get out of Dodge!” Cormac shouted.
Cormac, Bryn and I ran back through the burnt wood to the front door of Granny’s house.
I tore open the bent door…
There was nothing inside but garbage.
“What happened?” I demanded. “This is the way we came in!”
“We can’t get back that way,” Cormac said. “It wouldn’t be much of a trap if the Door worked both ways, would it?”
“There’s another Door we can use,” Bryn said. She pointed to one of the rust-buckets half hidden in the forest, not far from the ruined cabin. “The blue car, over there! While those jerks were pushing me around, I stole their keys.”
My goody-two shoes sister picked a pocket?
I switched guns I reloaded new clip into my gun, my basket in time to shoot the closest goblins at the head of the hoard headed our way.
We raced to a car, which may have at one time been blue, though it was hard to tell under all the graffiti, rust, and bizarre after-factory add-ons. It was a real Mad Max vehicle, all improvised and shit, with gun turrets and extra car doors strapped over the real car doors as armor, and weird wheels, four different brands. I’m pretty sure one was a bicycle wheel.
Cormac slid into the driver’s seat. Bryn slid next to him, and I was squeezed against the far window.
We took off in that deathtrap like the Dukes of Hazard.
“It makes more sense for me to drive,” Bryn chided Cormac.
“Except I’m already driving. Live with it.”
“Cormac, are you one of those macho pigs who thinks boys can do everything better than girls?”
“Yeah. Sure. That’s me. Wanna tell me where we’re we going?”
“If I were driving, I wouldn’t have to tell you anything.”
“And that, Lady, is why I’m driving.”
“Stop calling me ‘Lady.’ My name is Bryn.”
“As you wish, Lady Bryn.”
I saw Bryn smile before she hid it; Cormac saw it too. A quick answering grin twitched around his mouth. Then he was all business again. “Now, you gonna tell me where we’re going?”
“Our house, Venice Beach. I know it’s where the werewolf will go. Our mother is there, helpless in a coma. All he has to do is sever the last tether of her life, and her soul will never be able to return to Midgard.”
“So you know we aren’t in Midgard.”
“Yeah, I know that much. I know there are thousands of echelons, and we must be one of the ones below grade. What were those creatures?”
We explained the Wreyth theory.
“Bryn, I don’t understand how you know any of this,” I said.
“Lady Bryn, I don’t understand why you don’t have the Clogyn,” Cormac said. “No offense, Roxy. But Bryn is the eldest, right? The heir to the Legacy of Red Hood?
“Ugh, yes, unfortunately.” Bryn grimaced. “Before Mom’s accident, she gave me the Clogyn. I was her heir and she wanted to teach me all about my family legacy. When I realized what it meant, I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“Were you frightened?” Cormac asked her.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“No shame in honest fear.”
“Fine. Yes—I was afraid. Terrified. But not like you think. Not for myself. For Mom. And for my own daughter.”
Cormac almost drove the car into a tree.
“Watch where you’re going!” I shouted.
“Dammit, I knew I should have been the one to drive!” Bryn muttered.
“You, ah,” Cormac cleared his throat, “You have a daughter? So you had a husband…boyfriend…really great prom night…?”
“No, I don’t have a daughter. Yet. But I might someday. Even if I didn’t, I still had Mom to consider. You see, there’s a trick to this fairytale shtick. Every generation has to reenact the same story. Little girl comes home to find granny replaced by a werewolf. Hero shows up, saves girl…”
“Except when the wolf eats her first,” I chirped.
“Right, then there’s that. But even if it all ends happily ever after, that happy isn’t so long. That couple is only needed by Fate as long as it takes to pass the Red Hood on to the next heir. Then they die tragically. Cause you see, that’s part of the fairytale cycle. Think of every fairytale heroine you’ve ever read about or seen on screen. How many had two living, loving parents instead of some insanely tragic backstory?” Bryn ground her teeth. “I thought if I refused the Clogyn, I could escape the curse. I thought…nothing would have to happen to Mom and Dad if I never became the new Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Did it work?” Cormac asked.
“My mom’s in a coma and my dad’s an internationally hunted criminal, so take a wild guess.”
“I didn’t know he was internationally hunted,” I said. “I thought his only outstanding warrants were local.”
“I’m sorry, Bryn,” Cormac said. “I never thought about it like that. My parents are dead too.”
“How did they die?”
“Heart attack and cancer. It never occurred to me to wonder if our family legacy had anything to do with it. I blamed corn syrup and cigarettes.”
“Granny Rose is a fairy. She can come to Midgard whenever she wants, in whatever form she wants. She doesn’t have to look old. She doesn’t need to wear human flesh. She set this all up. Fairytale Theatre. Some kissing cousin of ours is supposed to sweep in and rescue the latest heir, marry her….Oh, crap.”
She peered suspiciously at Cormac, who focused on his driving with unusual intensity.
“What did you say your family legacy was?” Bryn asked.
“Hang around the woods, kill monsters. Pretty basic.”
“Did you say that Granny Rose was your godmother too? Are you one of her descendants?”
“She has quite a few. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“That’s right,” said Bryn. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“As you wish, Lady Bryn.”
“Shut up.”
He grinned.
My heart hurt a little.
Although I live in part of the world in which there is no shortage of masculine eye candy, it’s still rare to run into truly gorgeous guys. Straight ones, at least. In the last day, I’d already met two: a disheveled muscle master who had exuded such physical charisma that I’d tumbled into my first one night stand; and a dangerously delicious and deliciously dangerous hotter-than-a-volcano green-eyed trouble magnate in an Armani suit who was only interested in me for my wardrobe. There were very good reasons I never expected to meet the first bod again, and never wanted (dared) to meet the second gentleman again.
And then I met Cormac Huntsman, Bachelor Number Three. Third time’s the Charming.
If only he were trying to charm me instead of my sister.
Chapter 10. Road Cage
We rounded a bend in the curvy mountain road. Cormac pulled up to a gravel shoulder.
“Why are you stopping?” demanded Bryn. “We’re racing the werewolf, and he already has a head start.”
“I’d like to get the lay of the land.”
“What a good idea,” I gushed.
Bryn traced the beeline between my idiot expression and the giant heart I was drawing around Cormac with my imagination. She rolled her eyes. “Roxy, don’t make me hit you with a brick.”
I ignored her.
“Have you led battle missions into Ghoulie echelons before, Cormac?”
“Not really, no. Before Bryn, I never met anyone stupid enough to dive head first through an obvious trap door to Hell.”
His gentle amusement softened the barb. Bryn harrumphed.
A bullet-ridden sign announced: SCENIC VIE__. The W looked as if it had been bitten off by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. From here, we could see the entire Los Angeles valley.
Like most people, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to imagine what Los Angeles would look like if aliens invaded the Earth, knocked out the power grid in haphazard spots, rained down cluster bombs in others, and then left the pathetic survivors to
scrabble over scraps in street-to-street free-for-all skirmishes with motor cycle cannons, electric chainsaws, and paint ball guns. I now had a strong visual.
“Not as bad as I feared,” Cormac said. “I think we can make it to the Santa Monica Pier. Can you get us to your house on foot from there?”
Bryn nodded grimly.
We were silent as we drove the rest of the way down from the San Bernardino mountains. What gave me the shivers were not the elements of this world that were different from home, but how closely Wreyth resembled my own earth. A scary post-apocalyptic version with lynch mobs, tire fires, and arsenic smog. Wreyth, you’re freakin’ me out here.
We had to cross the entire valley from the mountains to the sea. Charred pines to poisoned palms. The familiar streets and freeways were all there where they should have been, although occasionally barricaded by goblins in ski masks who had to be paid off with bribes before they’d let us pass. (Cormac used paid them with the joints he’d saved.) Most of the other cars or trucks were wrecks like ours, decked out with makeshift weapons and armor. Gangs of green-skinned men in business suits sat behind the machine guns. Road rage was the norm not the rare exception. Cormac did some fancy driving to avoid getting pinched between two rival gangs. The goblins had the attention span of drunk monkeys, though, so they couldn’t even sustain a vendetta properly before their car would clunk against some third gang’s truck and set off a fresh exchange of insults and injuries. It was playing a live version of Grand Theft Auto in commuter traffic. The cussing and shooting from everyone against everyone reached ridiculous proportions as the traffic thickened and slowed to bumper-to-bumper congestion.
Cormac checked the watch on his phone. “Damn, we hit rush hour.”
“It’s eight o’clock at night,” Bryn said.
“It’s always rush hour here. Look—traffic is equally heavy in both directions.”
“It would help if the drivers would stick to the right side of the freeway,” Bryn said. “I haven’t seen commuters this crazy since Bangkok.”
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